Love, Pucks, and Other Stories by Elise Faber

Author:Elise Faber [Faber, Elise]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781637490907
Publisher: Elise Faber

Twenty-Three

Joel

She was with me.

Then she wasn’t.

I was about to come in my pants like a fucking teenager.

And…I’d lost her.

I didn’t realize it at first. She kissed me back, wove her fingers into the hair on my nape, tugged just on the right side of pain. Her thighs clenched around my waist, she ground back against me, matching my rhythm.

Then I felt the wet on my face.

What the fuck?

I pulled back from the glorious mouth, those lips that drove me fucking crazy, and saw that she was crying.

Lids closed, cheeks flushed, mouth swollen and red…and tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

“What the fuck?” I whispered.

Her eyes flew open and—

Hell.

The look in them eviscerated me.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“Did I hurt you?” I said quickly, leaning back, her hands sliding free of my hair. “Shit, sweetheart, was I too rough?”

“I-I’m fine.” She cleared her throat, lifted her chin. “And, I’ll be even more fine if you let me go so I can get back to work.”

Bravado.

Billie Rose.

I was learning they were practically married.

Another fucking layer.

Filing that away to deal with later, I pointed out, “You’re crying.”

That frown deepened as she lifted a hand and touched her cheek. Her face changed as she glanced down at her fingers, rubbing them together, as though testing to see if the moisture was real.

She hadn’t known she was crying.

What the fuck?

“I’m fine.” She brushed roughly at her cheeks. “Put me down.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen.

She couldn’t run away from me when she was pinned between my body and the wall, her legs wrapped around my hips.

There were plenty of questions flowing through my mind, but I needed to ask the most important one.

“Did I hurt you?”

A beat. Her face doing something I couldn’t quite read. “No.”

I sucked in a breath, warned, “Sweetheart.”

A spark of bronze in eyes darkening to cobalt, frustration making its appearance. “You didn’t hurt me, you ridiculous man. Now put me down.”

“No,” I said, letting her ass go and using my now free hand to stop her when she brushed roughly at her cheeks again. I slid my arm around her again and leaned back in, kissed her tears away, knowing as I tasted the salt of her pain on my tongue that I wasn’t going to let to this lie.

I’d dicked around long enough.

I’d pretended to not feel what I was feeling for too fucking long.

It was time to act.

To press my hand.

I nipped at her earlobe. “Why the tears, harpy?”

Her fingers had gone back to my shoulders and my question had them digging in. In that moment, I thought it was because my tone had been all order. Thought she was pissed that I was demanding she answer me.

Only later I would understand her reaction, and the resulting regret from that understanding would sit heavy in my belly for a long, long time.

She dropped her legs, looked away from me. “Put me down,” she whispered.

One of my hands was still in her hair, protecting her from hurting her head on the wall.

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